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The only surviving film footage of Mark Twain, taken in 1909 by Thomas Edison:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)
Posted September 26, 2012 12:00 AM
ABOUT "ABOUT LAST NIGHT" AND ITS AUTHORS ABOUT TERRY'S BOOKS ABOUT TERRY'S PLAY AND OPERA LIBRETTI The production will then transfer directly to Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, where it will run Nov. 16-Dec. 2. For more information, go here. To read Terry's program note, go here. To listen to an interview with Terry and John Douglas Thompson, go here. To see a video of excerpts from the 2011 Orlando production of Satchmo at the Waldorf, starring Dennis Neal, go here. • Terry collaborated with Paul Moravec on Danse Russe, a backstage comedy about the making of The Rite of Spring that was premiered by Philadelphia's Center City Opera Theater on April 28, 2011. To read more about Danse Russe, go here and here. To view excerpts from the opera and see Paul and Terry talk about its creation, go here. Terry previously collaborated with Paul on The Letter, an operatic version of Somerset Maugham's 1927 play that was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera in 2006 and opened there on July 25, 2009. To see excerpts from the opera, go here. Dicapo Opera Theatre will give The Letter its New York premiere on February 7, 2013. For more details, go here. To read Terry's reports on the writing, staging, premiere, and reception of the original production of The Letter, click on the link.
THE LONG GOODBYE MORE ABOUT "POPS"
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BIOGRAPHY BIOGRAPHY
This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout, Laura Demanski (otherwise known as Our Girl in Chicago, or "OGIC" for short), and Carrie Frye (who signs her postings "CAAF"). Terry, who lives in New York, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. His Wikipedia entry is here.
Terry's latest book is Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the U.S., JR Books in England, Larousse in Brazil, and United Press/Alpina in Russia. He is currently at work on Mood Indigo: A Life of Duke Ellington. He wrote the introductions to William Bailey on Canvas and the paperback editions of Richard Stark's Flashfire and Firebreak and Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado. One of his essays is included in Robert Gottlieb's Reading Dance, and he contributed notes on recordings by Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, and Oscar Peterson to Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology.
Terry's first play, Satchmo at the Waldorf, is transferring to Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., where it will run Oct. 3-Nov. 4. The production is directed by Gordon Edelstein, with John Douglas Thompson appearing in the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. To order tickets, go here.
To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here.
To read reviews of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, watch TV interviews and listen to radio interviews and podcasts about the book, and find out the answers to frequently asked questions about Armstrong and Pops, click on the link.
tteachout@artsjournal.com
ogic@artsjournal.com
caaf@artsjournal.com Search
TOP FIVE
Margaret (Fox Searchlight, two discs). Kenneth Lonergan's masterpiece, the wrenching story of how a seventeen-year-old New Yorker (Anna Paquin) is brought face to face with the terrible fragility of life. Because Margaret nearly vanished without trace--it was only seen in a handful of theaters--the release of the film on home video is by definition a major event. Anyone who was moved by Lonergan's You Can Count on Me will be shaken to the core by Margaret. The Blu-ray disc contains the shorter theatrical version, the DVD the full-length extended cut (TT).
Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series (Corcoran Gallery, 500 Seventeenth St. NW, Washington, D.C., up through Sept. 23). Seventy-five abstract paintings and works on paper made by Diebenkorn between 1967 and 1987, the years when he was creating the most original works of his career in a studio in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica. This brilliantly curated show is one of the most satisfying museum retrospectives ever devoted to an American artist. You must see it, no matter how far you have to travel to get there (TT).
Classic Coleman Hawkins Sessions 1922-1947 (Mosaic, eight CDs). An overflowing cornucopia of key recordings by the de facto inventor of jazz saxophone, exquisitely remastered from the original 78 sides. Loren Schoenberg's masterly liner notes are worth the price of the package all by themselves (TT).
Tribes (Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St., closes Jan. 6). A well-wrought drama by Nina Raines about a self-consciously arty family of compulsive talkers whose youngest member (Russell Harvard) is deaf. David Cromer's theater-in-the-round staging maximizes the considerable strengths of Tribes (including its biting, often brutal humor). Not only is it the best show in New York, but the off-Broadway run has just been extended into January. What are you waiting for? (TT).
Pat Metheny, Unity Band (Nonesuch). Nine new compositions by the master guitarist, all performed by his latest working band, a quartet that features Chris Potter on tenor saxophone. This is the first time that Metheny has recorded as a leader with a saxophonist since 1980, and Potter's presence is galvanizing. All hands--including Ben Williams on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums--play with colossal vitality. This one's a keeper (TT).
Out of the Past
Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives. Originally published in 2001, this comprehensively informed, smartly written biography tells the believe-it-or-not tale of the Cambridge graduate, distinguished art scholar, royal courtier, and not-entirely-closeted gay who spied for the Russians, then was stripped of his knighthood when Margaret Thatcher blew the whistle on the deepest and darkest of his secret lives. Carter brings off the near-miracle of being just sympathetic enough--Blunt was a genuinely tortured soul--without falling into the fatal mistake of whitewashing the evil that he did. Engrossing, enthralling, horrifying (TT).
Michael Holroyd, Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition. This meticulously revised 864-page redaction of Holroyd's massive four-volume biography, published in 1997, improves on the original by trimming away the endless digressions, putting the focus squarely on the complex relationship between Shaw's life and work. Sympathetic but never hagiographic, Bernard Shaw strikes a proper balance between the major and minor plays, makes no excuses for the playwright's totalitarian inclinations, and tells you everything you need to know in an unfailingly readable way (TT).
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